The Stringent Tradition
Until not so long ago, the Last Will and Testament of an individual (otherwise known as a will) which is probably the one wish of a person that MUST be respected and executed, would not have any value if certain prerequisites were not met. The will had to be authored in the presence of witnesses that could testify that the individual is in full possession of their faculties, it had to be co-signed by an attorney, etc… Even handwritten wills had to comply with certain criteria before they could be accepted as legal and valid.
This entire concept required visits from the individual wanting to write a will to an attorney, visits from an attorney to an immobile individual, consequent transportation of the witnesses to co-sign, etc… The process would require planning, making sure that every party concerned would be available for the next appointment and painstaking writing and re-writing to make sure that the will would offer minimal chances of being contested in court.
Customer Relationship Management
The term means that a business implements ways for its customers to receive their services or whatever they have to sell without getting involved into too complicated procedures. In the online world, this is usually handled by automated CRM software which can work 24/7 and take in the input of the customers and help the company design appropriate strategies.
This concept has been taken a step further by law firms. In the case of people wanting to make a will, they reversed the table. Instead of waiting for the customers to input what they needed, law firms decided to make it so that an online application would be available to their customers through which they could write their own will.
The Combination
While the customer can make a will online, this will must still be legal and valid. To resolve the issue the online apps require that the customer responds to a very specific questionnaire, the content is reviewed by a professional will writer and then the customer can print up the document and manually sign it,therefore, making it legal and valid.
Such routines offer the advantage to the customer of being able to write the will at their own leisure, meaning that they can start the document today and take a whole year to complete it without the need to arrange appointments and paying fees. Furthermore, the will can be re-written if the circumstances surrounding it change at a fraction of the cost that such a process would require in the traditional way.
The Future
While this system will never stop people from contesting wills because of greed, getting what they think is theirs, or any other reason, it is a step in the direction of simplifying the legal procedures, making things easier for the common people and lower the fees, thus accomplishing the notion behind customer relationship management. Only in this case it is done in a larger scale. One that includes the judicial system.